New Technique Sees Bacterial Growth Quicker
Abstract
Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a patent-pending technique for faster and improved way to count bacteria and measure their growth, without killing the sample, by using a white light interferometer. This innovation is available for licensing. For more information, contact Commercialization Manager Jennifer Lee at jennifer.lee@pnnl.gov WLIs are microscopes that split a beam of light and then look for characteristic wavy patterns that appear in images as the two halves of the light ‘interfere’ with each other when recombined. The interference patterns translate into a measurement of different heights or textures on the surface of what’s being viewed and can track it as it changes. Using this previously unexplored approach, researchers were able to quickly see, in great detail, barely perceptible changes in heights down to three nanometers – more than 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair - in the topography of a sample. Being able to see very detailed height changes is important for bacterial colonies which, the team observed, grow slowly upward as well as out.
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1773172
- Resource Type:
- Multimedia
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION; 59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; WHITE LIGHT INTERFEROMETER; WLI; MICROSCOPES; SPLIT BEAM; INTERFERENCE PATERNS; TOPOGRAPHY; BACTERIAL COLONIES
Citation Formats
. New Technique Sees Bacterial Growth Quicker. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web.
. New Technique Sees Bacterial Growth Quicker. United States.
. Wed .
"New Technique Sees Bacterial Growth Quicker". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1773172.
@article{osti_1773172,
title = {New Technique Sees Bacterial Growth Quicker},
author = {},
abstractNote = {Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed a patent-pending technique for faster and improved way to count bacteria and measure their growth, without killing the sample, by using a white light interferometer. This innovation is available for licensing. For more information, contact Commercialization Manager Jennifer Lee at jennifer.lee@pnnl.gov WLIs are microscopes that split a beam of light and then look for characteristic wavy patterns that appear in images as the two halves of the light ‘interfere’ with each other when recombined. The interference patterns translate into a measurement of different heights or textures on the surface of what’s being viewed and can track it as it changes. Using this previously unexplored approach, researchers were able to quickly see, in great detail, barely perceptible changes in heights down to three nanometers – more than 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair - in the topography of a sample. Being able to see very detailed height changes is important for bacterial colonies which, the team observed, grow slowly upward as well as out.},
doi = {},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {2019},
month = {5}
}